Things to Do in the ER When You're Bored

This is my picture that I made with the Opera App, Be Funky.

Don't forget to hit the donate button on the right for Zephyr for Kids, and the Invisible Children thingy at the top.

I was going to bitch about the mess my ob/gyn made of my surgery on Friday but, frankly, I'm tired of bitching about it. My abdomen is fucking killing me, he stuck something in my left ovary to get rid of the torsion that supposedly wasn't there (instead of just taking it out like I asked him to), poked around my colon for some reason, then left without talking to me after the fact, or leaving instructions or even a prescription so I wouldn't feel like I'm dying. But that's okay; I'm getting some voodoo tea when Chefman comes home from work and I'll be fine.


I did, however, wind up in the ER yesterday, one day post-surgical, because it really DID feel like my abdomen was going to split wide open. Of course this had to be on a Saturday. We got there about noon and I figured that since it was so early there would be less of a wait. I was wrong. It took an hour just to see the triage nurse, and another two before I got called in the back. Where I got to lie on a gurney IN THE FUCKING HALLWAY. Now excuse me, but when you tell them you're there about a gynecological surgical issue, don't you think they would at least put a SCREEN around your gurney before they do the exam? No. Not at Huntington Hospital. I had a male nurse and a male doctor, and they both just hoisted up the gown to look at the incisions. Thank God I had my cute little black thong on. Which I had to take off, and which I now cannot find (it's probably still on the gurney). Long story short, Chefman and I were there until after 9 p.m.  


Normally, when I am trapped in the ER that long, once I get the doc to check me out and the nurse to medicate me, I start exploring the room for shit I can use at home. Alcohol pads are a must, as are those cool new hand wipes they make, and lots and lots of latex gloves for cleaning the house. Also, they have little tubes of water-based lube, which come in handy for a variety of reasons which I'm sure you can guess. And then there are the tongue depressors, which can be used for craft projects - including picture frames. When you're fucked up on dilaudid there are a LOT of fun things to discover and acquire in the emergency room.


Unfortunately, while I was medicated with both IV morphine AND dilaudid yesterday, I was in so much pain that it wasn't really fun. But we had the laptop. Hence the top picture - I added a crap ton of apps to my Opera browser, including Be Funky. I also got to listen to a really drunk Hispanic guy screaming about how his thumb was falling off because he either got hit by a car or cut himself with a knife. Since I was right outside fast track (in the hallway) I got to watch them fix him up. He wasn't even bleeding that much. First they told him that he gets no pain meds because of the cerveza - hahaha on you buddy. Then they put in TWO STITCHES. I was like, "Oh my God, stfu. Two stitches." He probably cut his finger on the beer can. Then he ate a turkey sandwich, drank a ginger ale, burped a burp that I could smell in the hallway and passed out right before they brought in his discharge papers. It took the poor nurse 10 minutes to wake his nasty ass up. I laughed. 


It's also fun to unhook your IV (not take it out of the vein - unhook it and stop the drip), put on your sweats and sneak out for a cigarette on the non-smoking campus. The best part? All the guards were smoking right in front of the ambulance entrance. The second best part? Trying to find your bed in the hallway after you've been shot up with narcotics and smoked your first cigarette in 8 hours. It was fun stumbling around but then they saw the IV tubing in my hand and I got yelled at. At least I got to smoke.


But the best part was trying to explain to the imbecile doctor why i was there. he kept asking about my colon. WHAT? Okay, I told him I had a fever and the runs, but wtf? Do you NOT see where the incisions are? Then my ob/gyn, whom they finally reached on the phone, told them that while he was in there he was poking around my colon and noticed that I had diverticulitis. No shit. I told him that already. But what I want to know is how he got to my colon from my ovaries. When I told the doc what pain meds I HAD been taking, he said okay, I'll write you a script and you can see Dr. Dickhead next week. He wrote me 12 pills. Of the wrong strength. HALF the strength. Then the pharmacy didn't want to fill it because, being half the dose, it was too early. Thank God for credit cards.


So those are my suggestions for fun in the ER. But really, try to get put in a room. There's way more fun shit to take home.